unlikelyclay.com

We’ve just returned from another of the great college tours.  It’s my son’s senior year and so far we’ve visited five campuses.

We wanted to tour the University of Florida campus - and not just because it’s the home of my favorite team.  UF is big - 50,000 students.  That’s a big concern when you are thinking about your child being one in a huge crowd.  But UF addressed that issue head on - and I think churches that are the largest in their town can learn something:

1. Don’t try to pretend to be something you’re not.  Over and over the tour guides and ambassadors talked about the size.
2. Define what size means.  The guides and ambassadors kept telling us about all the school offered. Their theme - there is someone here like you and something here you will like.
3. Put the cheerleaders out front.  Our guides and ambassadors were high energy, positive, informed, and contagious.  After their presentations, I wanted to go to UF!
4. Anticipate the most common questions.  Every question that was raised, they knew the answers.
5. Talk about what you’ve done to deal with fears.  Before we could ask about safety, getting lost in the crowd, getting around the big campus, those concerns were acknowledged and addressed.

I wonder if the church could learn anything from the Gators?

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 13th, 2007 at 4:33 pm and is filed under Doing Church. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.